Lansingburgh video highlights

The Lansingburgh video is up from their game last week against Aquinas at the Carrier Dome. If you go to our home page www.troyrecord.com and scroll about halfway down the screen, you'll see a section called Troy Record Video Network. There are three clips there so far, one is the Lansingburgh highlights. It's about two minutes and twenty seconds. Let me know what you think and hopefully, it came out well.

Fall All-Stars Info

Since I've been receiving a lot of questions about this issue I will try to get the answer out to as many people as I can. The Fall season was a lot of things - exciting, thrilling - it involved great games and truly had our entire sports staff and me especially not knowing what would come next. It was also another thing - long. I remember the first week of football, which came back on Friday, Aug. 31 - previews and things had already been in the works. The end of the fall season happened literally days ago, last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, with Lansingburgh competing in the state title game. That being said, there were a lot of great performances and it has made our job that much tougher in picking the best of the best to represent The Record's 2007 All-Area teams for girls and boys soccer and football.Our teams will come out like they have in years past. Boys and girls soccer will run the day before and the day after, the football stars, which will run Christmas Day. Our job will be very tough this year and it's because of the great athletes in Section II. Congratulations to all of you on a fine season.

Burgh Pictures from the Dome

Even though Lansingburgh came up short in the state title game at the Carrier Dome, they had a great season. Here are pictures from the Knights' 34-12 loss to Aquinas (Section V). One of the pictures clearly shows that sophomore tight end Jordan Zareski did make a controversial catch in the first half down near the Aquinas goal line that was ruled incomplete, but that's neither here nor there. You can purchase any of them on our web site or by calling our photo department. Also, look for video highlights from the Class A New York State title game at the bottom of our homepage starting Wednesday.

Burgh is headed to the Dome

What a game at Dietz Stadium tonight for the Lansingburgh Knights. They gave up the first touchdown and then rattled off six in a row to hammer Ossining (Section I) 49-20 in the Class A state semifinal. Senior Kenny Youngs was the story, as he rushed for 161 yards and three touchdowns....in the first half. For the game, Youngs went for 229 yards on 20 carries and five, count 'em, five touchdowns. The Knights defense was also up to the task, forcing four turnovers - three interceptions and one fumble recovery. Lansingburgh will play against Aquinas (12-0) from Section V on Friday Nov. 23, the day after Thanksgiving, at 1 p.m. at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. The quote of the night has to be from Lansingburgh senior Chris Sawyer, "Since I was five-years-old I've been waiting for this."If the Knights play like this next week, they will have a great shot at walking away State Champs.

Monroe-Woodbury 42, La Salle 20

The Crusaders were just too much for La Salle on Saturday. Even though junior standout Marquis Terrell had 308 yards on 39 carries and three touchdowns, the turnovers and mistakes were too much for the Cadets to overcome. Here are some other pictures from that game thanks to our sister paper down in Kingston, The Daily Freeman.

Bengals give Gilbert a dozen

Real congratulations must got out to the Tamarac girls soccer team. No one thought they were going to end up champs. There's Ichabod Crane, Ravena and defending champion Schalmont. The Bengals used real team work to win this title and give head coach Craig Gilber his 12th Section II title. The coach already surpassed the New York State coaching victories record, earlier in the season. Things weren't looking so good when the team dropped two straight games while Gilbert was trying to break the record against Hoosick Falls and Cambridge. Those are their only two losses in an 17-2-3 season. Almost every player had gotten into the act in the last two games. Sophomore Brittany Bogan scored twice in a great overtime win over Schalmont, while senior Val Parkes scored the game-winner on a corner kick from senior Sarah Lonergan.Freshman Julia Sloboda scored the only goal in the team's 1-0 victory over Ravena on Friday evening off a cross from Sam Matthews, while defenders Kat Kulzer, Sara Dormandy and Heather and Amanda Konieczny shut down the section's leading scorer, Ashley Wilson. The Bengals play in the Class B Regional at Broadalbin on Tuesday against Section III champion Marcellus. Just another soccer season in Brunswick.

"Super" Bowls

Man those were some great games this weekend. I was at the La Salle/Guilderland game and the Lansingburgh/Burnt Hills tilts. The La Salle comeback will go down as one of the best comebacks in Section II history, down 17-0 with 10 minutes to go, the Cadets scored four touchdowns in the final 9:45. The final one, a 92-yard fumble return by senior linebacker Brian Beaury, coming to stop what could have been a game-winning drive by Andrew Smith and the Dutchmen. As the first half was coming to an end, a veteran member of the media said to me he hadn't seen one player (he was referring to Smith) take over a championship game like that. Smith had both Guilderland touchdowns and had made two interceptions.It was a bit ironic that Smith's ability to keep plays alive and shed La Salle defenders was him and his team's undoing. Guilderland coach Dan Penna was very gracious in defeat, not blaming the officials once while I talked to him for what must have been three minutes following the game. Even though the Dutchmen were playing in their first Super Bowl in school history, I see no reason why Penna can't engineer another run soon.

This was probably the best high school football game I've ever seen.The Lansingburgh/Burnt Hills game featured eight lead changes. Every score in the game caused a lead change except Paul Layton's second field goal, which brought the score from 14-10 Lansingburgh to 14-13. This game was truly a great one. How much did having NyQuan McGirt in this year's Super Bowl help the Knights? The senior tailback, who had been through so much coming in to the playoffs, ran a kick back 99 yards, finished wiith over 100 yards rushing and had a HUGE, HUGE 57-yard run to set up a late score.

Local Schedule

This a great time of the year if you're not a schedule maker. Here's the week ahead and what I've figured out so far. Sites that aren't determined I will try to fill in as the week goes a long, so be sure to check back in. I will be at the Maple Hill boys game tomorrow against NYS No. 1 ranked Galway. It should be a good one. Monday, November 5BOYS SOCCERClass C/CC FinalMaple Hill vs. Galway at Colonie, 5 p.m.Class A FinalBurnt Hills vs. South Glens Falls at Colonie, 7 p.m.

About Me

Andrew Santillo is a sports reporter at The Record in Troy, New York. Originally from Niskayuna, Andrew graduated from Ithaca College in 2005 with a degree in journalism. He currently resides in Albany.